


like a you or a me

by pendragonness



Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M, Pining, Regret, just conversation tbh, vaguely Thomas/Silver but just in the sense that Thomas is so freaking kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 03:20:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10585350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendragonness/pseuds/pendragonness
Summary: “News travels far that Long John Silver and Captain Flint are inseparable.”“Anything can be separated,” John said quietly, “with the right amount of force."





	

**Author's Note:**

> What I would give for Thomas Hamilton to have met John Silver.. 
> 
> I think I just wrote 2K+ words of Silver being sad because I'm so damn sad too
> 
> also I love Thomas to the moon and back and wish so dearly that we'd gotten more of him <3 (but I'm terrified to write him so I kept this simple..)

He wished he'd given in. Now, here in this moment where it was minutes and hours and days too late, John Silver regretted his impossible decision and wished instead that he had simply given in.

That he had stayed at Flint's side despite their lack of mutual goal - in spite of it really - but because that was the place he'd grown fond of and no, he really truly did not want to turn away from it. But there was a bigger story happening beyond his own. There was a war Flint would never relent from, and death tolls that would forever rise, and an ending that would never come, not if Flint took the cache.

So he had done what he never wanted to do – never wanted because John Silver was a coward, a selfish coward, and once upon a time, his own fulfillment had been the most important thing to him. Then James Flint happened. Then this whole new life happened, and now, so many miles and so many agonies later, he turned away from what he wanted most – to keep this broken man with him forever, to be the part that might make this man whole – and bestowed that task of healing upon someone he knew was far better equipped for it.

Silver wished he'd given in to his greedy past self and kept Flint for his own. He wished he'd given in to Flint's beaten, exhausted grip of companionship, and fallen into the embrace that was always only a shaking breath away.

And he regretted trying to end this mass of chaos that was the only state in which the people around him knew how to function. For all the good he had intended to do, now, in clear daylight, Silver could sense it crumbling beneath his touch, as so many things before.

“May I speak with you?”

The voice was shockingly soft, with a delicate accent that beckoned to James's tone, the one he used when being formal. But this was not James's voice.

Silver stared out from the darkness of the rented carriage, toward the blazing white of the Savannah sun, and straight at who he could only assume was Lord Thomas Hamilton.

The man looked relatively tall, and his skin struggled to remain fair in the climate, instead faintly browned and flushed, a little aged with plenty of lines around the eyes. A rough – quite ungentlemanly, Silver wryly observed – grey and blonde beard covered his cheeks. He was fairer than Silver had expected, too fair for his taste, and a little plain perhaps, but...warm. That much was brutally clear in one look alone.

“If you don't mind,” Thomas added, and his voice was as warm as he looked. Warm, and gentle, and his smiled a little bit, as if to reassure the uninviting pirate king.

Silver said nothing – his mouth had gone painfully dry, this wasn't a scenario he'd planned for, how the _fuck_ hadn't he planned for this, did he honestly expect Flint would see Thomas and then never look around for Silver again? But that was easy: yes.

He unlatched the carriage door and maneuvered his crutch out, followed by his body. Thomas took a step back and did not offer to help, letting the smaller man handle himself with ease.

Silver had expected to step out of the carriage and find Flint standing with Thomas, but the tall man was alone – no, there was Flint, in the distance with Israel and Ben, just half the size they should be. Waiting, for god knows what.

He lifted his chin, felt his jaw twitch, and refused to swallow the unpleasant taste of apprehension in his mouth. John Silver tried to square himself up to Thomas Hamilton, to be the full impressive figure he knew he could, to possibility intimidate, to remain the one in control of this entire scene...but the moment he stepped out of the carriage, he knew he'd failed.

“I'm afraid I don't know who you are, but...I need to thank you,” Thomas started, and he reached forward to clasp Silver's free hand. It was a handshake at first, formal and earnest, but almost immediately Thomas wrapped both his hands around Silver's one. “This..whatever you've done to cause this, thank you. I must admit I'm terrified to wake up any moment, but until I do, I'm going to bloody well make the most of it.” His words came out in a relieved, light laugh.

Silver could only nod and finally swallow that sharp chunk of grief that was lodging itself inside him. He opened his mouth, knowing he should speak, but unable to find what it was he was meant to say. His mouth was raw and there was no air in his lungs.

“James?” he rasped, the only thing that existed and mattered right then.

The smile that lit Thomas's face was more tender than anything Silver had known to exist and he felt it in his gut; the only tenderness, he was sure, that could also cause him pain.

“I convinced him to give me a moment, but I'll gladly leave you two alone for a while if you'd like. I imagine there's plenty to be said after what he's just seen.” But Silver shook his head. Still unable to speak. Thomas's blonde brows dipped slightly as he measured the man before him, and read what he could in Silver's demeanor.

“May I ask your name?”

Silver resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the taller man's infallible formality. Was this seriously what James fell in love with?

“John Silver,” he replied.

Thomas Hamilton raised his eyebrows with...amusement. “ _Long_ John Silver? The pirate king?”

“That's how they tell it, anyway.”

Thomas smiled again, in that way that was so warm and genuine, it was baffling. “Little did I know this morning when I woke, I would have a day full of so many wonderful things.” Silver felt his eyes unintentionally narrow, not sure if he was being made fun of or not.

The gaiety on Thomas's weathered face started to slip, and Silver could see his mind working. “So James comes back to me, in the hands of a pirate king,” he murmured. His dark eyes bore into Silver but their focus was elsewhere, in his own thoughts. The realization, when it formed, was still as gentle as anything so far. “News travels far that Long John Silver and Captain Flint are inseparable.”

He'd figured it out more quickly than Silver had expected.

“Anything can be separated,” John said quietly, “with the right amount of force.”

And then there was pity on the older man's fair face, pity and an understanding that Silver couldn't bear the weight of. He turned away and made to limp back into the carriage, but a light hand on his elbow froze him as if it were iron instead. He didn't look back.

“I meant it, Mr. Silver. Thank you, for whatever you've done to make this happen. Whatever you've gone through for however long you've known James, and whatever you had to do to bring him here....I wish there were stronger words than 'thank you', but that's all I have, I'm afraid.”

Silver swallowed, staring into empty space before him, struggling to recall the mechanics of breathing. “I needed him gone,” he forced through his teeth, voice just a rumble in the tense air. “And he needed you.” _More than he needed me._

“It can't have been easy. James is...a compelling man. One can easily be taken in-” Silver threw a glare over his shoulder, praying all the while that his eyes did not glisten in the harsh sunlight. “-and I envy that you got to know him for so long,” Thomas finished, clearly trying to be delicate with Silver's raging mood. “But it is never easy to say goodbye to a loved one.”

Silver continued to glare as his chest swelled, and he felt himself fill with fury and grief all at once. How _dare_ this ridiculous man make such claims to him, act as if he knows John Silver, knows any of the history between him and James Flint.

“This was my choice,” he bit out, and Thomas's gentle face softened even more, apologetic and sincere and unbearable. He understood exactly what Silver was so violently avoiding and Silver hated him for it. And then – the hate turned into exhaustion. John Silver was so exhausted and so sad he could feel the bleakness of it threatening to swallow him whole. And in that sensation, he knew what he was going to eventually become – who he would become. He had unmade Captain Flint from James McGraw, so that he could reform him onto Long John Silver. And it was too late to be stopped.

Silver turned a little more toward Thomas, but was still unable to look him in the face. His chest shook and from it came a tired, trembling voice: “Be..be careful with him, please. He's not the man you once knew.”

Just half a moment's pause, and Thomas spoke again, voice delicate, almost cautious. “No, I can see that,” he murmured, “but I would wager he's no longer the man you once knew either.”

Silver winced and Thomas shifted closer, tall and somehow, in some unexplainable way, his presence felt..protective. “I didn't mean that maliciously,” he said gently, and Silver looked up, finding Thomas's dark blue eyes unbearably tender once again. “I only meant that I'd like you to trust me – with him.”

Silver stared into Thomas Hamilton, stared into the soul that was so unashamedly open, a soul strong and sharp and kind and he hated it - and he knew.

“I do,” he answered, in just a whisper. His pale eyes flicked back to the distance, where Flint stood, a silhouette, watching. Regret was like a disease in his bones and already  John Silver felt the pain it would still cause him ten, twenty, thirty years from now.

“You won't stay?” Thomas broke the tense quiet again, and Silver looked at him with blatant surprise.

“Stay?” he repeatedly dumbly.

Thomas nodded in the direction of the bleak plantation. “It's no wild life at sea, to be honest it's not much of anything at all, but...” He hesitated – his first time doing so, Silver noticed, and wondered what it could mean. This man was too bold to be easy to read. “You don't have to leave him,” Thomas finished and Silver wanted to both laugh and weep at his words.

The man, the stranger he'd only heard whispered memories of, was reaching toward Silver in gratitude and kindness and inviting him to be part of something which deserved to be his alone. It was an intoxicating and impossible offer. Long John Silver had his own duties and his own reasons for doing what he had done, and while a part of him regretted it all, wished he had given in to himself and to Flint and to what they could have had – what was done, was done, and this was his fate.

“No,” Silver sighed, and he dropped the tense anger and resistance he'd held between him and Thomas Hamilton for these long minutes. He let himself be exposed to this man that he knew had seen straight through him from the moment they met. “I had my time with Captain Flint. Things cannot be the same as they were, not anymore. Not now.”

“If he has changed, Mr. Silver, and that is what frightens you, I can tell you I'm frightened too,” Thomas urged kindly, his blue eyes so dazzling in their affection. “Something tells me James is frightened as well, and I highly doubt it would do any harm for him to have you around, even just a little while longer.”

But Silver was shaking his head before the exiled nobleman could finish speaking. “He needs you, Mr. Hamilton, and to forget about everything that happened in the past ten years. Only you can help him do that.”

“I would never ask James to forget a period of his life, no matter what he experienced.”

Silver struggled against a soft smile; he hated being able to understand, after all, perhaps how Flint had fallen in love with Thomas Hamilton.

“If you won't help him forget the last decade, then I urge you, please – help him forgive it all.” John Silver turned away, officially, and heaved himself back into the carriage. He whistled, and Thomas turned to see the two pirates that had brought James to him were returning to their king.

“Goodbye, Thomas Hamilton,” Silver said, and his voice, while strong, shook just the slightest.

Thomas smiled at him, tight-lipped, his eyes distracted and troubled, but his appearance was still of the utmost kindness. “Goodbye, Long John Silver.”

Silver listened to the quiet footsteps of Thomas Hamilton fade away, to a place in the distance he would never look, and never approach. John Silver did not feel more kindly toward what he had done, he did not feel better about his life now, but he understood this was an inevitable end.

He understood that James Flint deserved this quiet, forgotten life on a plantation, existing in a dream with the man he loved. And as Silver reflected briefly, painfully, on the clear heart of the man he had just met, he understood that James Flint deserved him.

 

 


End file.
